There Is Now War in Ba Sing Se
by Rebecca Hb
Summary: Sequel to "Goldeneye". And the walls came tumbling down.


**There Is Now War in Ba Sing Se**

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The ground rumbled.

Ichiro, long-used to the Ba Sing Se shaking under his feet, just continued haggling with the street vendor. He liked these little collections of market stalls. They disappeared when the sun set and reappeared somewhere else with sunrise, always a few steps ahead of the market inspectors. Their owners would cheat a man as soon as look at him, but sometimes you could find things there that you'd never find anywhere else in Ba Sing Se.

For good reason. Ichiro had his eye on a soldier's firebending manual. That was proscribed material if ever there was proscribed material in Ba Sing Se.

The Earth Kingdom man paused mid-sentence, suddenly worried. His eyes scanned the crowd, and Ichiro turned to look himself. People all through the crowd had frozen, turned to look in the same direction. Not everyone, though, which puzzled Ichiro until he noticed the nearest frozen man had bare feet.

The earthbenders sensed something. _All_ the earthbenders sensed something, and a chill ran down Ichiro's spine.

"What's going on?" He asked quietly, stepping towards the nearest earthbender.

"It's the Wall," the man said in a strangled voice. His words seemed to unleash a flood - suddenly all the earthbenders were talking at once, shouting, praying, cursing. The Wall, the Wall, the Wall- The Wall was coming down, someone was tearing the Wall down, **earthbenders** were opening the Wall.

Ichiro stood rooted to the spot, his head spinning. The Wall was coming down? Why would someone open the Wall? Had the Avatar defeated Firelord Ozai? Was the war _over_?

Confusion and fear swept through the crowd, everyone asking questions no one had answers to. The Wall was coming down, but no one had any idea **why**. No one knew anything, except the Wall was coming down. Ichiro's gaze went to where all the earthbenders had been looking, but with all the buildings in the way- He thought, though, that over the top of them, he should have seen the upper edge of the Wall.

Maybe he was just too far away, though.

The yelling in the distance was suddenly punctuated by the sound of breaking pottery. He jerked in surprise, then suddenly the little market exploded with movement. Stall-owners packed their goods away, frightened mothers snatched up their children, men hurried home. Ichiro gulped, hoping the twins had enough sense to get home themselves, then his eyes slid back to the firebending manual. The stall-owner had his back to it...

No. He needed to make sure the twins were safe.

###

It took him hours to get back to the apartment. Ichiro pushed and jostled, but the streets were so thick with people all going _someplace_, he could hardly make any headway. It felt like the whole city was on its streets, people rushing to the place they felt safest.

Three blocks from the apartment, a main thoroughfare was suddenly deserted. He almost made it the length of the street before someone yanked him into a teahouse and cursed him as a fool. He struggled and got cuffed for his troubles, but he had to get **home**.

Then the first tank rumbled down the street, and his blood ran cold. Fire Nation.

The Fire Nation was in Ba Sing Se.

He made a strangled noise, and he heard someone start crying behind him. The hands of the man holding him tightened bruisingly hard, but Ichiro couldn't find it in himself to care. Not when the tank was joined by two more followed by komodo-rhino cavalry and more tanks. The procession went on and on, with no end in sight.

"So much for no war in Ba Sing Se."

The words felt like a shock to Ichiro - he hadn't said them! But as he glanced around at the Earthfolk, he saw a kind of despair and exhaustion on so many faces. The refugees, he thought. The people who've already run from the Fire Nation once or twice or a dozen times.

- The twins!

He twisted out of the grip of the man holding him and ducked towards the back of the shop. He had to get back to the apartment! He had to find them and make sure they were safe! He had to-

Someone caught him by the scruff of the collar. "Don't be an idiot. They've got small patrols sweeping the side-streets. _Wait._"

###

It was nearly dark by the time the column vanished from sight. Ichiro darted towards the back door again, and this time, no one stopped him. He ran hard, his stomach sick with fear for his younger siblings. What if someone had seen Yui's eyes, what if one of the soldiers had seen them in New Sozin years ago? Or worse, seen them with Daimyo-General Torao? What if Torao was the **commander** of this force?

The daimyo would kill him. ... All right, probably not, but their lord-father would still be very angry.

He bounced off the door of their apartment building in his haste to open it, then scrambled at the latch until he realized it was **locked**. His hands started shaking as he remembered the landlord's gold-eyed grandchild and the daughter who kept her hair veiled over her face.

He gave himself a shake then ran for the alley running alongside the building. The effort to scramble up to their fourth-floor apartment bloodied his hands and tore the knees out of his pants, but he hauled himself panting onto the windowsill.

Only to get a long-handled wok hard against his shoulder for his troubles. He wobbled on the sill-

"Ichi-ni!" Yui yelled, the wok falling from her hands. Then she grabbed one arm, and Kouji grabbed the other, and they pulled him into the apartment. He fell to his knees then just outright collapsed as he was enveloped in his siblings' desperate hugs.

"We were so worried," Yui whispered against his shoulder. "We've been waiting so long for you to come home-"

"We thought they caught you," Kouji added, his voice shaking. "We thought-"

"It's okay," he said, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. "I just had to lie low for a while. But I'm here now."

He didn't tell them it would be all right. None of them would believe that lie with the Fire Nation in Ba Sing Se.

"Ichi-ni, what are we going to do?"

He hugged the twins all the harder and didn't answer for a few moments.

"Ichi-ni?" Kouji asked quietly.

"We'll figure something out," he said at last. "First, though, we're going to have supper and go to bed. We'll want to be fed and rested before we make our move."

The twins nodded, but none of them let go of each other to prepare supper.

###

Liu stepped into the richly-appointed study the Fire princess had claimed. It belonged to Long Feng, which was the entire reason she had wanted it, according to Duyi.

The girl lounged in Long Feng's favorite chair, her boots up on his desk, and Liu found himself in agreement with Duyi. She was young, younger than Ichiro, though she dressed and made herself up as if she was an adult woman. Arrogance radiated from her as surely as heat from a fire, and she scanned a set of reports as he performed an abbreviated bow of greeting. Her eyes didn't even flicker up to acknowledge him.

He'd played those kinds of games before, though. She had to the count of one hundred before he would depart. One. Two. Three.

Captain Qin sat nearby, a nervous expression on his face. His shoulders were entirely too tense, and Liu's eyes narrowed. His fellow captain's entire posture was off - too nervous for one of their least excitable members.

Fifty-seven. Azula lowered the report down. "Liu. They've told me so much about you. It seems you're quite the war-hero."

He performed an abbreviated bow of acknowledgment.

A smile twisted her lips. "Take off the scarf. It must be so hard to talk with that muffling your voice."

Qin flinched. Liu merely undid the knots of the scarf covering his throat and the lower half of his face.

"_Well._ Aren't you handsome?"

Liu nodded. He certainly had been before he was scarred.

Her eyes narrowed just slightly then she waved the report she had been reading at him. "It seems you've been observing a trio of Fire Nation citizens who managed to infiltrate the city."

- Ichiro!

He was too experienced an agent to do more than nod. Yes, he had been observing them. Yes, they were undoubtedly Fire Nation citizens. Yes, the firebender boy would be of far too much interest to the Fire Nation.

"You no longer have that assignment," Azula said. "They can't be enjoying their current circumstances, so I'll send a pair of agents for them in the morning. They belong with their own people."

Liu delivered an abbreviated bow of acknowledgment. There was something in her tone of voice, some undercurrent of amusement, that alarmed him. She knew more about Ichiro and his siblings than she was letting on, he was certain of it.

"You're so cooperative. I appreciate that." She set the report down and picked up another, beginning to read. Liu was passing seventy when she flicked her eyes up to him and pulled a face as if she had forgotten he was there. "You're dismissed, captain."

**-End-**


End file.
